If this blog suddenly looks larger, bigger, rounder, and more populated with stuff, it’s because I have imported my three Level 1 (HE4) OCA blogs now that they’re safely in the bag at a progressive 56% (Drawing Skills 1), 61% (Practice of Painting), and 67% (Understanding Painting Media). With any luck and a strong following wind, Studio Practice (Level 2, HE5) will be in for assessment soon. I just have to finish a reflective account video and, right now, my top idea for that is to be interviewed by my cat. I know, look out Emin.

Studio Practice, unlike the first year equivalent courses, accrues 60 credits and so there is only one more course at this level to complete before being launched into what is essentially the degree year. Up to this point, grades don’t count towards the degree but at Level 3 (HE6) things get serious and, given I’ve fought most of these modules all the way, this was a worry. I’m good at guidelines and structure but not rules – well, not where it’s only about you and nobody dies if you break them – so the thought I might lose to a knock-out in the final round has been a tad bothersome.

Seems I shouldn’t be worried though. Every tutor has said, in one form of words or another, that the materials are to be used as prompts, that they can be reinterpreted/reconstructed/rewritten, or that you can bin them and do your own thing; and frankly, whoever heard of a compliant art student? I have the luxury of only ‘wanting’ this degree for my own satisfaction and sense of personal progress in a practice I began years ago and couldn’t complete at the time; I don’t need it for a career unless ’emerging’ extends to pensioners on the edge of wondering what toothpaste is.

Anyway, it’s all here now from the scratchy, impenetrable first exercises through to what always seem to be pinnacles until I start the next course when those astounding products of skill and imagination look underwhelmingly basic.

Whether Strayfish Arts will eventually become a giant red dwarf, sailing the universe with no discernible activity on board, or a black hole continuing to suck in further peripherals probably depends on that final year/level – and my functional relationship with bathroom items.

Note. None of these are trains – HE4 HE5 HE6.